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Jørn Utzon, who has died aged 90, was almost the last of the giants of the north whose sensibility was largely formed in the 1930s, when Scandinavian idealism shone bright against the dark clouds of the great depression further south. The tragic drama of the Sydney Opera House overshadowed his whole career, but, by 1956 when Utzon won the competition, he had already started to create a successful practice.
Like most Danish architects of his generation, Utzon trained at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen. In 1940, Denmark was invaded by the Nazis and, in 1942, he graduated, then escaped to neutral Sweden, where he married Lis Fenger: they remained together for the rest of his life. In Sweden, he began to become part of the Nordic Modernist scene, spending time in Alvar Aalto's office in 1945. Several years of entering competitions and building private houses followed, but the first important breakthrough came in 1956 with the brick and tile Kingq housing development at Helsingør. It became well known throughout Europe as a model for subsidised housing, with its singlestorey repetitive courts arranged freely on a grassy site and each unit carefully adjusted to respond to light, views and privacy. The scheme was followed by the tighter but equally successful Fredensborg development; there Utzon despatched one of his assistants to carefully note the passage of the sun on each courtyard and adjust the boundary wall heights to maximise its impact. Both schemes are still highly regarded by their occupants, and doubtless Utzon would have built up a brilliant domestic practice had it not been for the Opera House.
From the moment Eero Saarinen (who was then working on the TWA terminal) arrived late at the jury and rescued Utzon's scheme from the rejects pile, the history of the Opera House was as dramatic...